What the Landscape in the Paining Tells about - Research Paper Example

 American Landscape Ready for Conquering The inspiration for many artists in approaching new works comes from those scenes they know or are most intimately familiar with. For example, the Surrealist artist Salvador Dali often used the cliffs of his beloved Catalan Coast in his paintings, including his most famous painting “Persistence of Memory.” This was not only because they were one of his favorite landscape features from his childhood, but also because these cliffs were a tool for him to represent the duality of meaning he wanted to include in his artwork. Artistic efforts often provide useful tools for the study and understanding of complicated concepts in a variety of fields. In presenting an image of a given time period, artists are able to provide a ‘snapshot’, so to speak, regarding the culture and ideas in which they lived whether the image is that of a landscape, portraiture or other form of image-making. In cases in which the artists choose to provide visual images in which the forms and figures are recognizable, future generations are able to get a sense of how these people lived by examining shifts in depictions, deliberate misrepresentation and so forth that provide clues as to the underlying social structures. By looking at some of the landscapes that have dominated our vision of the landscape throughout history and locations, it is possible to see how vision can change. In the 15th century, Italian artist Sassetta painted “The Journey of the Magi.” This is a tempera and gold painting on wood measuring about the size of a standard American sheet of paper depicting a caravan of people moving down a hillside. The museum explains that this painting was actually only a small panel of a larger work which showed the Journey and the Adoration of the Magi – the second and lower panel is in a different museum. This panel shows the caravan of the three Magi as they make their way across the desert to Jesus’ birthplace. The grand castles in the background symbolize their combined power and the colorful clothing and adornments on their horses and bodies demonstrate their wealth. The tan hills of the background are tall and pointed, as would be normal in the Italian countryside yet betraying the artist’s lack of experience with the concept of sand dunes. Other elements that betray his lack of information include the caravan’s use of fine horses as pack animals and the dotting of leafless deciduous trees decorating the ground here and there. Barely recognizable within the cracks of the paint are the figures of a flock of birds. Two blue birds with long legs appear quite openly on the top of one hill and help to bring attention to the white and dark birds in the sky, flying in the same direction as the caravan. This symbolizes the idea that all of nature is attentive to the birth of the Christ child. The foreground area is filled with an almost white color texturized to give it the smooth-rough appearance of drifting sand or even snow, reminding the viewer that this is an event that took place in the winter. A brilliant tailed star sits at about the center point of this foreground hill with its tail pointing steadily down. This seems an abnormal place for such a feature but, as the museum explains, this positioning is intentional as it sits directly above the Madonna and child in the other half of the original work. However, it works even on its own as the artist has taken the trouble to position the various members of the group in a way that has them focusing attention on this star – people above it are looking down, children playing seem to be playing with its rays and people in front of it are looking back and down either at the children or the star, it is unclear which. This approach to landscape in Italy is strikingly different to the approach taken in Japan during the 16th century. As is seen in Maejima Soyu’s landscape painting, concepts of nature are hidden rather than guessed. Not a painting in the strictest sense of the word, this work is ink and color on a hanging scroll measuring approximately 20 inches by 13 ½ inches. It depicts a scene of sharply pointed, finger-like pinnacles reaching up from a rocky valley floor. Again, there is suggestion of human interaction within this environment, but this interaction does not take such a central position. Instead, it appears in the form of a small home built just at the valley floor near the bottom of the image. The rest of the scene is dominated by the craggy rocks and the evergreen trees that grow on them. Much of the landscape, though, is permitted to hide in cloud-like mists which separated the foreground from the middle ground and the middle ground from the background. In this way, the artist achieves four layers of dimension while only providing detail for two. The furthest dimensions include the purplish outline of further pinnacles and, in the very back, the ghostly shape of a full moon hanging just visible through the haze. Colors used in the image are similar to the natural colors seen in nature yet pared down to their most elemental. Details are precise and sharp in spite of the sense of obscurity and fuzziness one gets while looking at it. One of the things that is particularly interesting about this landscape is that it has a vertical orientation rather than horizontal like many of the landscapes we are accustomed to seeing today. Another interesting element is the way that the artist allowed the natural fibers of the paper to contribute to the finished effect of the fog. In the 17th century, landscapes had become even more expressive of the state of affairs of men as is seen in El Greco’s painting “Toledo.” Presented as a near square, this oil on canvas painting actually measures slightly vertical at 47 ¾ inches by 42 ¾ inches. The landscape presented is a scene from the top of a hill in a mannerist style which focuses more on the artist’s emotions as looking upon the scene rather than an attempt to depict the scene as it actually appeared to the eye. The view looks over a darkly green valley to the opposing hills on which exists the main city complex. The buildings are all white surrounded by bright green fields and dark green trees in the foreground. The far fields were olive. The sky is filled with bulking black clouds in the center vertical but these are flanked by much whiter clouds and a hole in the clouds to the right that allows a bit of sunshine to come through to the ground. In spite of this, the painting seems dominated by darkness. If you look very carefully at the image, you can just see the forms of small travelers on the roads that link the buildings, particularly on the bridge area. Bathers are in the river as are a group of washerwomen, demonstrating the peacefulness of the scene in spite of the threat that seems to be in the air. This feeling does appear again in the symbolism of the piece as a horseman sits near the island near the washerwomen as if guarding or enforcing. The lighting the clouds send down on the city gives it an unreal quality that seems to be reflected in these various activities of the people in much the same way that the bright colors of the Sessetta caravan bring a touch of unreality to that scene. In both images, this element of the landscape touches it with a sense of magic or hyper-realism indicating that that particular moment in time is a timeless and untouchable moment. Another image that seems to be incredibly dark and oppressive without actually providing any visual explanation is Sebastien Bourdon’s “A Classical Landscape” painted sometime in the 1660s. This oil on canvas is a relatively standard size at 27 ½ inches by 36 ¼ inches. The scene has a horizontal orientation and looks in on the inner areas of a courtyard with a seeming archaic structure. The main areas are dominated by structures that appear to be made of white marble incorporating a number of benches, separations, stairways and what seems to be a bridge crossing over a river barely discernable in the middle ground. As a painting created during the reinforcement of the Roman Church, the main focus of the landscape is on the Roman architecture highlighting the power and prestige of the ancient past. The heavily landscaped areas are peopled by individuals in ancient Roman garb reinforcing this connection to the wisdom and power of the ancients. Further emphasis on the power of Rome is seen in the half-reared form of a white horse statue dominating the middle left side. However, the artist seems to have felt some elements of threat in his atmosphere as evident in the way that he depicts the scene. Although the people are moving about in the middle of a beautifully and perfectly manicured garden area, they move about in a kind of gloom. Trees block out most avenues to the sky. Those areas of the sky that can be seen appear darkened, shaded, some dark clouds even appearing in the center area. These serve to highlight the position of the sun, which seems to be going down, as if the age of enlightenment has already happened and its light is now faded. Like Greco, Bourdon seemed to sense the tension on the air as nations and religious obligations began to come into conflict. As the world opened up again with new commerce, new countries and new opportunities, landscapes again opened themselves up to the sky as can be seen in Francesco Guardi’s oil on canvas painting “Piazza San Marco.” Again, the primary focus of the painting is on the human impact on the environment. The painting, 27 1/8 inches by 33 ¾ inches, is again horizontally oriented and is completely dedicated to the impressive view of the nearly entirely paved courtyard of the Piazza San Marcos. The square is peopled with a number of groups of individuals, walking around, standing and moving from place to place. Along the left and right sides of the painting is the three-tiered Procuratie Vecchie and the Procuratie Nuove, two arms of the Italian parliamentary buildings. In the distance (around the middle area of the painting) can be seen St. Mark’s Cathedral and belltower. Only the belltower is able to reach above the middle section of the painting, allowing the majority of the upper half of the image to be dominated by a brilliant blue sky filled with soft white clouds. The colorful outfits of the individuals in the courtyard added to the brilliant, open aspect of the scene to give an impression of expansion, opportunity and mankind’s achievements. Again, in celebration of the achievements of man, the painting returns to realistic attempts at depicting the scene. Whereas earlier paintings focused on something of an emotional reaction to the scene, Guardi returns to a more pictorial, camera-like approach to image-making that will again be rejected in the centuries to come. As the 20th century opened up and the camera made realistic paintings obsolete, artists such as Henri Matisse burst upon the scene with landscapes such as “Olive Trees at Collioure.” Relatively small at 17 ½ inches by 21 ¾ inches, this oil on canvas presents viewers with a shocking array of colors and lines that at first seem to do nothing more than confuse the eye. As one looks at the painting, though, a pair of trees can be perceived in the confusion with other tree-like shapes forming up behind them in the background. Only one of these trees takes on the traditional brownish-green tints of nature as it stands on the edge of a hill at the left side of the painting. A splash of yellow in a rose field behind this suggests a setting sun, but no true shape or interpretation is definitive. The other tree takes on the imaginative colors of Matisse’s imagination as he celebrated the color, life and joy of the Mediterranean location where he was painting. The trunk of this tree absorbs the glowing pink of the ground, mixes it with the deeper blues Matisse made for his shadows and returns a warm orange-red within the branches before they swirl up into a rainbow of colors in the crown of the tree. Although not much can be seen of the landscape itself, it is clear that Matisse’s painting was created in a time of freedom, exploration and a valuing of the human imagination. This approach is strongly contrasted with the final piece moving into the 21st century. Far from the exuberant, colorful joy of Matisse, “Bohemia Lies” by Anselm Kiefer is a compilation of oil, emulsion, shellac, charcoal and powdered paint applied to burlap that depicts a deserted wasteland. Extending from the center bottom of the painting to disappear in the midground distance is a pair of tire tracks, as if vehicles keep this way clear although no evidence of human survival exists within the image. Instead, the ground is shown predominantly lifeless and mostly brown. Colorful spots of pink and white are seen everywhere and could depict flowers as easily as they could be depicting the litter and other detritus of an uncaring and irresponsible human race. The scene is filled with this ruined land, giving no hope of greenery emerging as even the spots of color, if meant to be flowers, have no trace of green leaves associated with them. The resulting impression is one of stark desolation. As all these landscapes demonstrate, there is not a single ‘correct’ approach to the art as all forms are highly suggestive of their time and place. However, it seems impossible to keep outside influences such as social, political or economic forces from influencing the resulting final scene. ProvenanceGertrude and Leo Stein, Paris, 1906; acquired by Robert Lehman from undocumented source, Paris, May/June 1949 Additional Views 1 of 1 Enlarge Zoom NotesThis work is a fragment. It was originally the upper part of a painting depicting the Adoration of the Magi. The lower part is in the Chigi-Saracini Collection (Monte dei Paschi), Siena. The two parts were separated some time before 1829, when the MMA panel was sold at auction [see Ex collections]. The MMA panel has been cut down on all sides; technical evidence indicates that it originally had a shaped top. The Siena panel has also been trimmed at the top, but retains its original width of 38.3 cm, giving some indication of the original appearance of the work. Provenancechevalier Franchi (until 1829; sale, Christie's, London, May 22, 1829, no. 155, as by Pinturicchio, to Rogers); Samuel Rogers, London (1829–d. 1855; his estate sale, Christie's, London, May 3, 1856, no. 639, as by Pinturicchio, for £13.2.6 to Davenport Bromley); Rev. Walter Davenport Bromley, Wooten Hall, Ashbourne, Derbyshire (1856–d. 1862; sale, Christie's, London, June 12, 1863, no. 33, as by Gentile da Fabriano, for £24.3.0 to Monckton Milnes); Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, London (1863–d. 1885); his son, Robert Offley Ashburton Crewe-Milnes, 2nd Baron Houghton, later Marquess of Crewe, Crewe House, London (1885–at least 1914, as by Paolo Uccello; sold to Douglas); [R. Langton Douglas, London; sold to Hutton]; [Edward Hutton, London, until 1925; sold to Griggs]; Maitland F. Griggs, New York (1925–d. 1943) Exhibition History New York. M. Knoedler & Co.. "Loan Exhibition of Primitives," February 1929, no. 19 (lent by Mr. Maitland Fuller Griggs). London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Italian Art, 1200–1900," January 1–March 8, 1930, no. 64 (lent by F. Maitland Griggs [sic], New York) [commemorative ed., 1931, no. 88]. Hartford. Wadsworth Atheneum and Morgan Memorial. "Retrospective Exhibition of Landscape Painting," January 20–February 9, 1931, no. 2 (as "Procession of the Magi"). Detroit Institute of Arts. "The Sixteenth Loan Exhibition of Old Masters: Italian Paintings of the XIV to XVI Century," March 8–30, 1933, no. 49a (lent by Mr. F. Maitland Griggs [sic], New York). Art Institute of Chicago. "A Century of Progress," June 1–November 1, 1933, no. 94. New York. Century Association. "Italian Paintings of the Renaissance," March 2–24, 1935, no. 15. Cleveland Museum of Art. "Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition," June 26–October 4, 1936, no. 145. New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Christmas Exhibition," 1938, no catalogue [see Ref. Zeri and Gardner 1980]. Cambridge, Mass. Fogg Museum of Art. "The Horse: Its Significance in Art," April 20–May 21, 1938, no. 1. New York. World's Fair. "Masterpieces of Art: European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300–1800," May–October 1939, no. 349. New York. M. Knoedler & Co.. "Loan Exhibition in Honour of Royal Cortissoz," December 1–20, 1941, no. 2. New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Maitland F. Griggs Collection," Winter 1944, no catalogue. New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Art Treasures of the Metropolitan," November 7, 1952–September 7, 1953, no. 74. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Masterpieces of Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 16–November 1, 1970, unnumbered cat. (p. 13). New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries," November 15, 1970–February 15, 1971, no. 181. Siena. Palazzo Chigi-Saracini. "Sassetta e i pittori toscani tra XIII e XV secolo," October 11, 1986–February 28, 1987, no. 12. New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Painting in Renaissance Siena: 1420–1500," December 20, 1988–March 19, 1989, no. 2a. Fabriano. Spedale di Santa Maria del Buon Gesù. "Gentile da Fabriano e l'altro Rinascimento," April 21–July 23, 2006, no. VII.1a. References Roger Fry. "'The Journey of the Three Kings' by Sassetta." Burlington Magazine 22 (December 1912), p. 131, ill. opp. p. 131 (color), as in the collection of the Marchioness of Crewe; states that it has traditionally been attributed to Paolo Uccello, but that it is unmistakably by Sassetta. J[oseph]. A[rcher]. Crowe and G[iovanni]. B[attista]. Cavalcaselle. "Umbrian and Sienese Masters of the Fifteenth Century." A History of Painting in Italy: Umbria, Florence and Siena from the Second to the Sixteenth Century. 5, London, 1914, p. 170 n. 1, Borenius lists it as by Sassetta, in the collection of the Marchioness of Crewe. Bernard Berenson. Letter. 1925 [see Ref. Zeri and Gardner 1980], suggests that it belonged to the predella of an altarpiece attributed to Sassetta at Asciano. Richard Offner. Letter. August 11, 1925 [transcript of letter in archive file], attributes it to Sassetta. Helen Comstock. "Paintings by Sassetta in America." International Studio 88 (October 1927), pp. 39, 41, ill. p. 37 (color). Raimond van Marle. "Late Gothic Painting in Tuscany." The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 9, The Hague, 1927, p. 340, fig. 214. Emilio Cecchi. Trecentisti senesi. Rome, 1928, pp. 117–18, 146, pl. CCXLVI [English ed., 1931, pp. 139, 165, pl. CCXLVI]. Tancred Borenius. "Pictures from American Collections at Burlington House." Apollo 11 (March 1930), p. 155, fig. II, calls it part of the Asciano polyptych, which he dates about 1430. Exhibition of Italian Art, 1200–1900. Exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts. London, 1930, pp. 61–62, no. 64 [commemorative ed., 1931, vol. 1, p. 31, no. 88; vol. 2, pl. XXXII], identifies the arch in the background as the Porta Romana in Siena. Alfred Scharf in Unknown Masterpieces in Public and Private Collections. 1, London, 1930, unpaginated, no. 4, ill., calls it "The Procession of the Three Kings"; identifies it as a predella panel from the polyptych of "The Birth of the Virgin" at the Collegiata in Asciano [see Ref. Berenson 1925]; calls it one of Sassetta's earliest works and dates it about 1430. Lionello Venturi. Pitture italiane in America. Milan, 1931, unpaginated, pl. CXIV. Paolo d'Ancona et al. "Il rinascimento." L'arte italiana. 2, Florence, [1932?], p. 65, fig. 160. Bernhard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932, p. 513. Piero Misciattelli. "Le pitture senesi del Museo Fogg." La Diana 7, no. 3 (1932), p. 198. Marialuisa Gengaro. "Il primitivo del Quattrocento senese: Stefano di Giovanni detto il 'Sassetta'." La Diana 8, no. 1 (1933), pp. 17, 25. Lionello Venturi. "Romanesque and Gothic." Italian Paintings in America. 1, New York, 1933, unpaginated, pl. 143. [F. Mason] Perkins in Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. 29, Leipzig, 1935, p. 482. Hans Tietze. Meisterwerke europäischer Malerei in Amerika. Vienna, 1935, p. 325, pl. 36a [English ed., "Masterpieces of European Painting in America," New York, 1939, p. 309, pl. 36a]. Bernhard Berenson. Pitture italiane del rinascimento. Milan, 1936, p. 441. Alfred M. Frankfurter. "The Maitland F. Griggs Collection." Art News 35 (May 1, 1937), p. 156, ill. p. 28 (color). John Pope-Hennessy. Sassetta. London, 1939, pp. 77–80, 93 n. 51, pp. 150, 209, pl. XIV A, rejects its connection with the Asciano polyptych [see Ref. Berenson 1925], identifying it as the upper part of "The Adoration of the Magi" in the Chigi-Saracini collection, Siena; dates this work between 1432 and 1436. Margaret Breuning. "Metropolitan Re-Installs Its Treasures in Attractive Settings." Art Digest 18 (June 1, 1944), p. 26. Francis Henry Taylor. "The Maitland F. Griggs Collection." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 2 (January 1944), ill. p. 155. Harry B. Wehle. "The Journey of the Magi." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 3 (December 1944), pp. 96–97, ill. (overall, and color detail on cover), accepts Pope-Hennessy's [see Ref. 1939] reconstruction of this picture as the top half of the "Adoration of the Magi" in the Chigi-Saracini collection, Siena. Herbert Friedmann. The Symbolic Goldfinch: Its History and Significance in European Devotional Art. Washington, 1946, pp. 36–37, 74, 90, 118, 155, pl. 90 (detail), identifies the two birds in the right foreground as goldfinches. Bernard Berenson. Sassetta, un peintre siennois de la légende franciscaine. Paris, 1948, p. 54, fig. 40. Millia Davenport. The Book of Costume. New York, 1948, vol. 1, colorpl. 1 (cropped). Cesare Brandi. Quattrocentisti senesi. Milan, 1949, pp. 55, 190 n. 33, p. 252, pl. 61, accepts the connection with the Chigi-Saracini panel [see Ref. Pope-Hennessy 1939]. Art Treasures of the Metropolitan: A Selection from the European and Asiatic Collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1952, p. 223, no. 74, colorpl. 74. Herbert Friedmann. "Symbolic Meanings in Sassetta's 'Journey of the Magi'." Gazette des beaux-arts, 6th ser., 48 (December 1956), pp. 143–56, ill. (overall and details), along with the goldfinches [see Ref. Friedmann 1946], identifies cranes, ostriches, and a falcon in this painting, and discusses the symbolism of these birds. John Pope-Hennessy. "Rethinking Sassetta." Burlington Magazine 98 (October 1956), p. 366, dates it after Sassetta's Saint Francis altarpiece made for Sansepolcro (1437–44), reversing the dating he proposed in Ref. 1939. Enzo Carli. Sassetta e il Maestro dell'Osservanza. Milan, 1957, pp. 42, 44, 46, 120–21, 127, colorpl. XVII, pl. 9a, accepts the connection with the Chigi-Saracini Adoration; dates it about 1428–29. A. Hyatt Mayor. "The Gifts that Made the Museum." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 16 (November 1957), p. 106. Federico Zeri. "Un appunto su Bartolo di Fredi." Paragone no. 151 (July 1962), pp. 55–56, compares it with a fragment by Bartolo di Fredi depicting the Journey of the Magi (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon) that was once part of the Adoration of the Magi in the MMA (Lehman Collection, 1975.1.16). Augusta Monferini. Sassetta. Milan, 1965, unpaginated, fig. 3, accepts the connection with the Chigi-Saracini Adoration, dates the work 1428–29, and relates it to Gentile da Fabriano's Strozzi altarpiece (Uffizi, Florence). Mario Salmi. Il palazzo e la collezione Chigi-Saracini. Siena, 1967, pp. 61, 63–64, 67, fig. 41 (reconstruction), accepts the connection with the Chigi-Saraceni Adoration and tentatively suggests that the work originally had a circular format; dates it shortly after the San Martino Crucifix of 1433. Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools. London, 1968, vol. 1, p. 386; vol. 2, pl. 551, lists it as a fragment, and companion to the Chigi-Saracini Adoration. Giustina Scaglia. "An Allegorical Portrait of Emperor Sigismund by Mariano Taccola of Siena." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 31 (1968), p. 433, dates it 1432–33, during Sigismund of Luxembourg's stay in Siena on his way to Rome to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor; relates the hats of the falconers to headgear worn by Sigismund or members of his retinue and proposes that the eldest king in the Chigi-Saracini Adoration is a portrait of Sigismund himself. Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 183, 272, 608. Roger Fry. Letters of Roger Fry. New York, 1972, vol. 1, p. 17, fig. 22, states that Fry was the first to attribute the picture to Sassetta. Bernard Berenson. Looking at Pictures with Bernard Berenson. New York, 1974, pp. 90–91, ill. (color). David Robertson. Sir Charles Eastlake and the Victorian Art World. Princeton, 1978, p. 223, gives information about the Davenport Bromley sale of 1863. Denys Sutton. "Robert Langton Douglas, Part III, XVII: Dramatic Days." Apollo, n.s., 109 (June 1979), p. 469, fig. 35, states that Douglas bought the picture from Lord Crewe and sold it to Edward Hutton; adds that Douglas was the first to identify it. Howard Hibbard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980, pp. 222, 229, 232, fig. 397 (color). Dorothy Lygon and Francis Russell. "Tuscan Primitives in London Sales, 1801–1837." Burlington Magazine 122 (February 1980), pp. 113, 116, give provenance information. Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sienese and Central Italian Schools. New York, 1980, pp. 85–86, pls. 48, 49 (detail), suggest that the relatively small scale of the work (i.e., the combined MMA and Chigi-Saracini panels) indicates that it was meant for private devotion; date it between Sassetta's "Madonna of the Snow" (Contini-Bonacossi Bequest, Florence) of 1430–32 and his Saint Francis altarpiece (National Gallery, London; Villa i Tatti, Florence; and elsewhere) of 1437–44, placing it closer to the latter. Carlo Volpe in Il gotico a Siena: miniature pitture oreficerie oggetti d'arte. Exh. cat., Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. Florence, 1982, p. 392, rejects Salmi's [see Ref. 1967] suggestion that the painting may originally have had a circular format; dates it after 1430. Alessandro Angelini in Sassetta e i pittori toscani tra XIII e XV secolo. Exh. cat., Palazzo Chigi-Saracini, Siena. Florence, 1986, pp. 37–43, no. 12, ill. (overall and details in color, and black and white detail) [English ed., "Sassetta and Tuscan Painters, XIII–XV Century," 1986], states that the MMA and Chigi-Saracini panels were separated and trimmed on all sides, probably during the nineteenth century; finds no evidence to support Salmi's [see Ref. 1967] proposal that the original format of the work was circular; discusses the influence of Gentile da Fabriano's Strozzi altarpiece (Uffizi, Florence); finds a date in the mid-1430s to be most likely. Keith Christiansen in Painting in Renaissance Siena: 1420–1500. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1988, pp. 4, 80–81, 83, 115, no. 2a, ill. (black and white and color), states that the Chigi-Saracini panel has not been cropped on the sides and that technical evidence indicates that the top of the MMA panel was shaped; remarks on the influence of Gentile da Fabriano's Strozzi altarpiece of 1423, "which Sassetta would have seen on a trip to Florence prior to 1430"; favors a date of about 1435; relates the picture to the Saint Anthony Abbot series by the Master of the Osservanza (Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Gemäldegalerie, Berlin; and Robert Lehman Collection, MMA). Andrea De Marchi. Gentile da Fabriano: Un viaggio nella pittura italiana alla fine del gotico. Milan, 1992, pp. 194, 210 n. 27, dates it between 1426 and 1430. Christopher Lloyd in Alfred Sisley. Exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London. New Haven, 1992, p. 16, fig. 15 [French ed., "Sisley," Paris, 1992, p. 24, fig. 15], compares the composition to Sisley's "View of Montmartre" (Musée de Grenoble). Max Seidel. "The Social Status of Patronage and its Impact on Pictorial Language in Fifteenth-Century Siena." Italian Altarpieces, 1250–1550: Function and Design. Oxford, 1994, p. 127. Jacob Lawrence in Michael Kimmelman. "At the Met and the Modern with Jacob Lawrence." New York Times (April 12, 1996), p. C4, ill. Graham Hughes. Renaissance Cassoni, Masterpieces of Early Italian Art: Painted Marriage Chests 1400-1550. London, 1997, p. 23. Carlo Sisi. La collezione Chigi Saracini di Siena: per una storia del collezionismo italiano. Exh. cat., Palazzo Te, Mantua. Florence, 2000, p. 35, dates it about 1435. Miklós Boskovits in Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. Washington, 2003, pp. 625, 627 n. 16, accepts Scaglia's [see Ref. 1968] identification of the eldest Magi in the Chigi-Saracini fragment as a portrait of Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg and thus dates the work after July 1432 when the emperor passed through Siena on his way to Rome. Keith Christiansen et al. in Gentile da Fabriano and the Other Renaissance. Exh. cat., Spedale di Santa Maria del Buon Gesù, Fabriano. Milan, 2006, pp. 297–99, no. VII.1a, ill. (color) [Italian ed., "Gentile da Fabriano e l'altro Rinascimento"]. Dóra Sallay. "Early Sienese Paintings in Hungarian Collections, 1420–1520." PhD diss., Central European University, Budapest, 2008, p. 178 n. 392, identifies the birds on the hillside at upper left as cranes and relates them to two birds she also identifies as cranes appearing in an "Adoration of the Christ Child" attributed to the workshop of Benvenuto di Giovanni in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. La collezione Salini: Dipinti, sculture e oreficerie dei secoli XII, XIII, XIV e XV. Florence, 2009, vol. 1, p. 267. Machtelt Israëls in Da Jacopo della Quercia a Donatello: le arti a Siena nel primo rinascimento. Exh. cat., Santa Maria della Scala et al., Siena. Milan, 2010, p. 236, under no. C.20. Machtelt Israëls. "Sassetta and the Guglielmi Piccolomini Altarpiece in Siena." Burlington Magazine 152 (March 2010), pp. 167, 169, dates it about 1433; suggests that it may have been commissioned by Giovanni di Guccio Bichi, a wealthy and powerful Sienese banker who commissioned decorations used during King Sigismund of Luxembourg's visit to Siena in 1432–33 and who was knighted by Sigismund [see Refs. Scaglia 1968 and Boskovits 2003]. Additional Views 1 of 1 Enlarge Zoom Works Cited 15th century: The Journey of the Magi by Sassetta http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/european_paintings/the_journey_of_the_magi_sassetta_stefano_di_giovanni/objectview.aspx?page=1&sort=1&sortdir=asc&keyword=landscape&fp=1&dd1=11&dd2=0&vw=1&collID=11&OID=110002064&vT=1 16th century: Landscape by Maejima Sôyû http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/asian_art/landscape_maejima_soyu/objectview.aspx?OID=60009812&collID=6&dd1=6 17th century: View of Toledo by El Greco http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/european_paintings/view_of_toledo_el_greco_domenikos_theotokopoulos/objectview.aspx?OID=110001017&collID=11&dd1=11 18th century: A Classical Landscape by Sébastien Bourdon http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/european_paintings/a_classical_landscape_sebastien_bourdon/objectview.aspx?OID=110000189&collID=11&dd1=11 19th century: Piazza San Marco by Francesco Guardi http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/european_paintings/piazza_san_marco_francesco_guardi/objectview.aspx?OID=110001040&collID=11&dd1=11 20th century: Olive trees at Collioure by Matisse http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/the_robert_lehman_collection/olive_trees_at_collioure_henri_matisse/objectview.aspx?OID=150000212&collID=15&dd1=15 21st century: Bohemia Lies by the Sea by Anselm Kiefer http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/all/bohemia_lies_by_the_sea_anselm_kiefer/objectview.aspx?page=2&sort=1&sortdir=desc&keyword=landscape&fp=1&dd1=0&dd2=0&vw=1&collID=0&OID=210007212&vT=1 Read More